URGENT NEED FOR 30 PEOPLE TO CONTRIBUTE $20 IMMEDIATELY - Stacy Bannerman needs your help to testify June 3rd in U.S. Senate on behalf of Veteran's Families "significant number of suicide attempts by military wives and kids"
28 May 2009
Please make checks or money orders payable to:
IHC/Sanctuary for Veterans & Families (SVF)
Mail to:
International Humanities Center
860 Via de la Paz
Suite B-1
Pacific Palisades CA 90272
Hello!
I know you’re busy, and I know times are tough right now, so I will get right to the point, in the hopes that, even though the economy has hit all of us hard, you recognize that the ongoing war in Iraq is hitting our troops and military families even harder.
I have recently gotten anecdotal reports from military wives at Fort Hood, Texas, about a significant number of suicide attempts by military wives and kids. Here’s what one of them wrote: “They cannot give me figures on spouse suicides but they see so many attempted suicides in the Emergency Room that the medical staff have become quite adept at handling them.” Another Blue Star wife and member of Military Families Speak Out provided me with an eyewitness account of being at the base medical center when a mother brought her son in after he had shot himself in the gut because of his distress at having his father serving his 3rd tour in Iraq. Apparently, this young man shouted, “It will never be all right again,” immediately before pulling the trigger.
These issues are not made public, they need to be.
I contacted the Senate Armed Services Committee on Personnel today to ask when they would hold a hearing on military families. It’s scheduled for Wednesday, June 3rd, at 2:30 p.m., in Washington D.C. I asked Brie Eisen, the staffer, (phone number 202-224-3871) if there were any military families testifying, or any Guard/Reserve families. She told me, “No, we don’t have any Guard families, and we MIGHT have ONE military spouse testifying. And we MIGHT have one of the Directors of the Army Family Readiness program here.”
I said, “One military family member – at most – and someone who’s on the payroll? And you think you’ll hear about what’s really going on for military families? The only Family Readiness Support I got was a letter mailed to me six months after my husband was gone, telling me that he would be deployed.” She invited me to submit written testimony, and, if the schedule permitted, would try to get me on the panel to testify. But it’s not official, and it requires that I am actually there.
I am asking for your help so that I can be there, along with a few dozen members of Military Families Speak Out (MFSO) www.mfso.org, who will come to the hearing wearing MFSO T-shirts and occupy the seats in the first few rows of the Senate Armed Services Committee hearing. We will also do a press conference, conduct interviews, and I will write an article for multimedia publication and distribution.
The Sanctuary for Veterans & Families is a project of the International Humanities Center, our fiscal agent, which is a registered 501©3 IRS tax-exempt non-profit organization. We provide advocacy, support, and Sanctuary WeekendsTM for women veterans, wives of veterans, and their loved ones.
The Sanctuary was established in 2007, and has become a voice for the women who serve on the front lines and on the home front, providing advocacy, support, and innovative, experiential, gender-specific programming to meet the needs of these forgotten populations, who bear the brunt of the war at home. We conducted our first Sanctuary Weekend for Women Veterans in southern Oregon in mid-April of this year, with spectacular results!
The total cost of the trip to D.C. to attend – and hopefully speak – at the Senate Armed Services hearing is $859, including meals, ground transport, hotel, and fees assessed for award travel booking and luggage. I am using my frequent flier miles, and have secured a pledged donation of $250. The Armed Services Committee needs to see and hear from military family members who aren’t on the payroll. I have made arrangements to be there, but I need 30 people to donate $20.00. Please be one of them.
The Sanctuary for Veterans & Families is a project of the International Humanities Center, a nonprofit organization under Section 501(c)(3) of the IRS Code. To make an online contribution to The Sanctuary for Veterans & Families, an IHCenter Project, please go to http://ihcenter.org/groups and select our name from the alphabetical list. Click on The Sanctuary for Veterans & Families to visit the page, so that you can easily process a direct contribution and instantly receive your personal acknowledgment letter.
Please make checks or money orders payable to:
IHC/Sanctuary for Veterans & Families (SVF)
Mail to:
International Humanities Center
860 Via de la Paz
Suite B-1
Pacific Palisades CA 90272
Phone: 310-526-9665
info@IHCenter.org
I thank you in advance for your contribution, and invite you to visit our website, www.sanctuaryvf.org, which we are currently updating.
May we all find sanctuary somewhere,
Stacy Bannerman, M.S.
Medford, OR 97504